Dodging Suicide - A Lifetime's Preoccupation

An alternative and affectionate look at coping with Cyclothymia/Bipolar Disorder. Kit Johnson is a successful International businessman, who has had to battle through the condition and wrestle with frequent moments of despair and suicidal thoughts, including two attempts. He sought help through tried and tested channels, took medication and various therapies - all to no avail. He discovered that humour and home spun philosophies saved him from the worst excesses of his condition. This semi autobiographical account is funny, excoriating, honest and thought provoking.

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First published 2011

This edition published 2012

Dodging Suicide

A Lifetime's Preoccupation

Dedicated to my lovely, adorable daughter who is the one constant
in my life, and whom I love so much. I turned extreme mental
anguish into motivation and it's a message of hope for everyone
who suffers from Bipolar. God gave me Bipolar - but he also made
me funny!

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental

To The Samaritans, a marvellous institution
which I managed to avoid calling for reasons of pride and
embarrassment. It's pure luck that I am still here to type these
words, and I was wrong. If this book stops anyone from committing
suicide, which is, as Camus said, the 'ultimate irrevocable',
then put embarrassment to one side and call them.

I am pleased and proud to state that a % of the profits from this
book will be donated to The Samaritans.

About the author

Kit Johnson, despite the self deprecation all too evident in 'his
story', has managed to enjoy a significant business career.
Though undoubtedly he did not fly quite as high as his talents
suggested, he nonetheless garnered a degree of expertise and
recognition, particularly in the fields of coaching and
mentoring.

It is one of the more hackneyed clichés that many of us are apt
to 'do as I say and not as I do' and this applied to him more
than most. His intuitive skills, borne no doubt from a lifetime
of self absorbed analysis, gave him real insight into the issues
and problems of others, but pointedly, and with amusing irony, he
has never managed to sort himself out.

Much of his life could be reasonably characterised as huge effort
followed by failure, but with age and experience, he learned to
cease looking for a silver bullet solution, and determined to
manage the condition, and to do so by laughing at its
absurdities. It proved to be a pivotal moment, and one which
ultimately lead to this book. He discovered through blogs and
contributions to mental health bodies and magazines, that he had
the gift of making a grim subject both palatable, and indeed
amusing.

His approach will not suit everyone, and nor does he suggest that
humour is the answer. It was for him and it may
well help many see the condition in a different light, but the
message is one of hope and optimism. He has managed to be
successful on the Krypton Factor (A British TV show), enjoy a
high profile business career, build two businesses, and be a
prominent and amusing After Dinner Speaker, where he can bring
the subject of living with Bipolar to a wide audience and help
break down the stigma associated with mental illness.

Not the Olympic 1500 metre champion he dreamt of being, or the
Great White Hope Heavyweight who knocked out his hero Muhammad
Ali, but someone who has managed to enjoy a decent degree of
success, despite being burdened by the condition that is Bipolar.
It's a story of hope triumphing over disaster.

To you the reader

If you find the book has helped you in some way I am profoundly
pleased. Whilst my primary aim was catharsis and self-healing, I
am dedicated to assisting others who feel they have no voice, or
hope, or understanding. You are not a lunatic, or a bad person or
anything else, you simply have a brain that doesn't quite wire up
as it should. Your affliction is no worse than any other birth
defect, or acquired condition, and no less socially unacceptable.

Of course, I hope this book is also read by people who are
fortunate to not have my condition or anything similar, and that
it amuses you and touches you in some small way, and helps you
better understand what a trial Bipolar and it 'siblings' can be.

You can reach me or follow me on

Twitter @dodgingsuicide

Or

www.kit-johnson.com

Foreword

This book is not for the faint hearted or the easily offended. It
was not written with any forethought in that respect, and in no
way is there any intention to offend.

But I make no apologies for the content. I determined to say it
just as it is, to use an old cliché, and when editing, I avoided
the temptation to clean up my act. Bipolar burdens the holder
with a compulsion to shock, and a need to be dramatic. Thus there
are few attempts to be elegant, overwhelmed as one is towards
self indulgence. The euphoric phase often brings risky behaviour,
a high sex drive, and a 'the hell I will' approach to everything.
My humour follows suit.

Humour intersperses the content like mortar in a brick wall, and
like mortar, it's what has held me together at times: so I make
no apologies for the frequent interruptions in flow to tell a
joke that for me reinforces the narrative, and the absurdities of
the condition. And that inherent need to shock means the jokes
are invariably bawdy.

You have been warned!

Last week I tried to commit suicide, not a pathetic
crie-de-coeur, but a full on attempt. I've always been partial to
the Lake District and I drove to the far end of a little visited
gem of a lake called Haweswater. It fulfilled my needs on a
number of levels; one cannot drive further - it's a dead end -
which seemed poetic; it's not an area that emits mobile signals,
and finally, it's eerily beautiful. The latter point is
heightened by its provenance. Ten metres or so below the surface
sits the village of Mardale, forever submerged by reservoir
flooding in 1935. In times of severe drought, like 1975, the
village walls and foundations rise up from the waters like a
ghostly apparition. So it seemed right. I gathered the tools of
my imminent extinction, namely 30 pills or so and a bottle of
Scotch, and headed off around the lake to the remotest spot I
could find. There I sat, not a sound to be heard, and nothing
moving but a Hawk drifting high above the surrounding peaks. My
only thought was that I'd better not die on my back, as the bird
might well peck my eyes out long before I was discovered. As if
that mattered, but the daftest notions wash through your head
when it's spinning. It's akin the one's mother calling out to her
six year old in the street, "have you got clean underwear on?" To
which the reply is "why?" and she replies "in case you get run
over" Bizarre, but true, and one shared by many.

As I once introduced myself at an After Dinner speaking
engagement,

I am what my Mother made me - an over anxious, over
achieving neurotic with clean underwear

I crammed the pills into my mouth and swigged ferociously at the
Malt Whisky. I guessed this was the least painful solution - and
it's not something you practice is it? Dependent upon your point
of view, my inexperience lead to a miracle of sorts, if surviving
could be classed as that. I was not a whisky drinker by habit, so
the combination of 30 odd pills lubricated by strong liquor was
way more than my stomach could take, and without warning, I
projectile vomited the contents over my lap. Yuk. I'd checked the
internet on how many pills would do it, but the search proved
inconclusive, other than to suggest it was not as easy as one
might imagine. Too many and you will vomit and too few you won't
die, but you will possibly wreck your kidneys and liver. My poor
wife thought I was going to do something unspeakably dumb and had
called the police. And so on my way back home, already feeling
I'd failed in life and at suicide, I get arrested. As you will
see, my relationship with my wife deteriorated as time progressed
from that fateful day in March 2007, so having me arrested was a
mixed blessing at best.

At the time it felt like the final insult- not even able to get
this right. As the days passed, I decided to put pen to paper.
Not from some 'he wrote it so that others may live' altruism, but
as an effort to understand myself. But as others will see, if
other people end up reading this, a seriously cyclothymic
personality can be eye balls out committed one day, and slothful
to the point of rigor mortis the next. Staying power is not one
of the conditions plus points. It gives you the creativity and
dramatic mindset to deliver an excellent of piece of work, but
with metronomic frequency you will likely as not have ripped it
up before you ever finished it: and carelessness too, as with
typos - which no doubt may make the odd jarring appearance. I was
adjudged careless that way as long ago as being a five year old.

Sitting next to a 'sniffer' on a plane this week ( the reader
should set aside what week as I am writing this in real time and
no doubt it will take some years to finish - if ever ) made me
even more determined to try and earth all this angst. Though hard
for me to imagine, I doubt if anyone else was paying any
attention to this at all, but all I could focus on was counting
the seconds before he slurped another slug of snot up his nasal
passages. After getting to around 200 sniffs over 3 hours, I
finally blew a gasket and threw him my napkin and exhorted him to
'please do the whole plane a favour and blow your f****** nose!'

If you haven't already come across the term, tmesis, you will be
aware of it now. I use it a lot. It describes the linguistic
action when one splits a word with another, often for emphasis.
Allow me to be more prosaic, take abso-f******-lutely. Now do you
get it? There are no experts (lots of charlatans though ) in
Cyclothymia, and you have to become you own shrink. For me it's
like being on the cusp of Tourette's Syndrome - the compulsion
and obsessiveness being very similar. So we like expletives and
filth! The desire to shock at times is overwhelming and any
attempt at self-control at those moments vanishes like early
morning mist. So please excuse me if at times my comments are
offensive to any reader, or if my jokes are deemed sexist,
lavatorial, or both. They will be. The book is of no value to me,
nor you, if I attempt to clean up my act. You have been warned as
they say. You may be pleased to have already noted that I have
disguised the F word with asterisks in the style of our
newspapers, though the whole effort seems a charade, as we all
know what the word is: and the word pops up more than 'thank you
Doctor' on the average soap these days. And there's another minor
wrinkle in my capacity to notice daft things that others miss.
Just why is it that whenever there is a hospital scene, the
screenwriters seem wholly unable to summon up more than 'thank
you Doctor'. And in some soaps the said Doctor is truly
eponymous! - brain tumour? yes its him again, that's right he's
now a psychiatrist, blimey what a guy, now he's a gynaecologist!
That's maybe a good place to mark the condition in a small way,
as most readers will chuckle and think 'you know he's dead
right'. But with me, it really grinds my gears and I ended
hitting the remote saying 'I can't watch this rubbish!' Much to
my daughters chagrin.

Back to the plane story, I know that if I asked my closest seated
neighbours if he was 'doing their head in', I might find that he
was, but most people can tune out. I can't, even if death was the
consequence of not doing so. So here I am, bashing out the words
that are pouring from my brain like a cataract. If you are
reading this, it means I succeeded in finishing it - hoorah! - A
first for me and a boost for others like me.

And as for words pouring out, take it in the most literal sense.
The words do: and since my brain never stops, nor do I ever
relax, then so shall my story reflect that. In other words,
forget content pages, page breaks, chapters, and sub sections.
From start to finish, this is going to be a mindless ramble. I
figure if the reader sometimes feels lost or exhausted by the
leaping about, then that in itself is a pointer to what I am
like.

The plane story is far from isolated. Even minor things irritate
and get under the skin. Take the 9 items or less queue in a
typical supermarket. I am compelled to count how many items
customers have in their basket, especially those ahead of me in
the queue. And if someone has 10 or more I cannot hold my tongue.
On the one hand I am right and these people are taking the piss,
but in the overall scheme of things and life in general, it's not
worth getting worked up about at all!! But all I can say is that
in the cold light of day, such common sense deserts me when it
happens. My daughter can see it coming even before it happens and
senses a change in my body language. Usually she says - "uh oh
you're going to embarrass me". Thankfully when she says that, I
desist, but not always.

They used to say all you needed to be successful in Hollywood was
to be Jewish and Gay. But now the Holy Trinity in Tinsel town is
to be Jewish, Gay and Bipolar. One out of three is not going to
qualify me, so I guess I could change my name to Goldstein,
undergo some corrective surgery, but sorry, I'm not turning
ginger for anyone. For the non Brits the term ginger is cockney
rhyming slang for ginger beer - aka queer. Forsooth! Gadzooks! as
they might say in Shakespeare's day, I have already offended by
using the term queer. Sorry but there it is - PC I'm not. On that
point, I recall a radio broadcast in which someone was being
castigated for using the term gay to describe a car. It was all
pretty trivial, but what really got to me was the gay's
insistence that the guy in context had somehow hijacked the term.
Au contraire my dear fellow! 'Tis they who have laid claim to the
word gay, which until say twenty years ago may have simply
described happy. A Battle of Britain hero could well have been
termed a gay blade. I guess he might be less than thrilled were
he called that today. In fact, my worry is that homosexuality is
going to be made compulsory in a few years. As a rampantly
heterosexual guy, I am unnerved by how gay is seemingly becoming
the default position for men. More of my prejudices later - and
before gays switch off, no, I am not homophobic, but feel it's
too in my face: and I should be allowed to say so. We live in a
world where one is not allowed to say anything - well not me, and
not with my condition! To coin a phrase I'm coming out! Nor am I
racist. Let me demonstrate.

A Welshman, Scotsman, Irishman and Englishman are
captured by the Taliban. The Mullah asks each of them have they
any last requests before he kills them?

The Welshman says yes I'd like a Welsh male voice
choir to sing Land of my Fathers.

He asks the same of the Scotsman.

He replies I'd like a mass Pipe Band to play Flower
of Scotland

And what about you Irishman?

I'd like to see 100 dancers perform the Riverdance
please.

Then he turns to the Englishman and says what's your
last request?

'F****** kill me first!'

I'm Bipolar, or more correctly Cyclothymic. The doctor said
you're rapid cycling, and I said 'but I haven't ridden a bike in
years'. One could be forgiven for thinking that sufferers were
afflicted with uncontrollable wind, rather like the staid
Victorian term 'the vapours' applied to that condition. Not proud
of being Bipolar, but I accept it. Actually that's bullshit - I
hate it. Perhaps I can look forward to the day when we are fully
liberated and can walk down Fifth Avenue celebrating Bipolar
Pride Day. Let's hope not. It would be bloody disorderly.

With almost impossible cruelty and not a little amusing irony,
when I finally determined what it is that's jack hammered me
almost flush with ground, after spending 20 years 'on the couch',
guess what? - everyone's coming out, especially z list
celebrities! It's as though Spartacus has melded with One Flew
over the Cuckoos Nest, as one by one, cocaine fuelled Herbert's
stand up and say "I'm Bipolar"

The Psychiatrist said to me 'Mr Johnson you're raving
mad'

I said 'I demand a second opinion'

He replied ' You're pug ugly too'

And why is this? Well research shows that the condition
particularly affects the creative and the gifted. To see how
these people rush to embrace the condition you'd be forgiven for
thinking it was akin to touching the robe of Christ. Though
laughable, it is nonetheless disheartening. To those of us who do
have it, in all its varying degrees, few would see it as a badge
of honour, something we are lucky to have. Would my life have
been better without it? Is the Pope a Catholic? Of course it
would.

Nature Notes 1

Bipolarsaurus

Noun - aggressive biped, high sex drive, prone to
moods, scaly skin can suggest toughness, but actually
hypersensitivity is the more likely trait

However, there is nothing wrong with humour and black humour in
particular; indeed it's been that very thing that's held me
together at times. I love to laugh, and at me most of the time.
You realise the condition will always be with you, but hopefully,
this book will show you can keep on top of it. Maybe my way might
work for you.

If you're not sure if you have it, you can't rely on the medical
profession. Sure there are the highly competent ones about, but
where to find them? More often than not, a five-minute chat will
result merely in 20mg of Prozac being administered. Pills are
maybe not the answer. But I fully acknowledge that for many it's
the only way through it. For the condition is not like rupturing
one's medial ligaments in the knee where the treatment is
universal: no Bipolar comes in a myriad shades, and so a
universal treatment isn't on offer.

So maybe this book, leavened with some humour - I hope - might be
of more use.